He’s considered to be one of the funniest actor’s in Hollywood, but what Steve Zahn really wants is to play the leading man.
“I keep thinking I’m going to play the tough guy, the hunk part — but along the way I become the funny guy. I guess the joke’s on me,” Zahn said in a phone interview yesterday.
His latest film, Joy Ride, found Zahn in funny mode again. But he didn’t mind. The movie gave him the chance to work with director John Dahl, whom he greatly admires.
“John and I met while he was casting Rounders. I read for him a bunch of times and he didn’t cast me,” he said.
The part Zahn read for went to Ed Norton instead.
But there were no hard feelings.
“We got along great and we wanted to work together down the road,” he said.
They ended up doing so both literally and figuratively: as its title suggests, Joy Ride takes place largely on the road.
The story follows two brothers (Zahn and Paul Walker) on their way to pick up Walker’s girlfriend, when they evoke the wrath of a psychotic truck driver.
According to Zahn, filming many of the scenes proved to be funny.
“When we’re sitting in the car getting chased by a truck, there’s not a truck behind us. It’s some grip, eating a piece of pizza, with a big flashlight, waiting for his cue. He’s laughing, and pointing at you,” Zahn said. “You know, you’ve been working together for three months, you’re talking to him about the game and then they yell action. And suddenly you have to be like ‘Oh s—t! Here comes the truck. Ahh!”
While pretending to run from the truck driver may not have been scary, stripping down on film was another story.
Joy Ride required Zahn and Walker to do a nude scene, though no vital body parts are visible. However, Zahn did find the humor in the scene.
“I’ve never said this before, but if you’re having to be naked by yourself, that’s a lot harder,” he said. “We were naked together, and we were covering up and we were nervous. It was a lot like real life.”
Zahn added, “Now if you’re doing a scene where you’re like standing in front of a mirror naked and singing, that would have messed me up.”
Zahn said Joy Ride isn’t yet another teen slasher flick, calling it a “popcorn thriller.”
“I think it’s a lot different. It represents an older kind of thriller,” he said. “It’s not about some guy jumping out of the closet with an ax and chasing a chick in her underwear. The bad guy (in Joy Ride) is not just some random bad guy. We f—k with him and it’s our fault.”
He added, “And then the only reason it’s R is because we say (The F Word) like 763 times. But there’s nothing else to say. You’re not going to say, ‘Holy crap! Oh, for Pete’s sake!’”
As for his future plans?
“I’m not doing anything,” he joked. “Re-styling my front yard. Raking, cutting wood. It’s hard. I’d rather be acting. Cutting wood is hard. Pretending is easy.”
